#firstyear

Pallete knife painting!

Title: curl up, hide.

Acrylic on paper

I've found that it is incredibly hard vetting through all the choices of colleges out there in US, figuring out what all the technical terms are and deciding what's the best choice for you personally. I don't know everything, but let me explain as much as I can though. First things first...

These are some helpful web bases for fresh students to write their first scientific report/essay perfectly.

For searching In high school, searching and getting information from web results by Google is acceptable. However, in the scientific environment, especially in colleges/universities or higher, web source information seems unreliable and unapprovable. So, how can you search for qualified sources?

"Google Scholar" is the best way to search for quality articles/reviews. Everything you need to do is search in the correct keyword. For example, if you want to know about CRISPR-Cas9 and its application in agriculture, your keyword needs to include "CRISPR-Cas9" and "agriculture".

For accessing the information The majority of scientific papers are required to pay before reading. If your institute doesn't support you to access these papers (like mine), the only solution is "Scihub".

You can easily access the "Scihub" website by Google.

Then, you have to copy the name/DOI of the paper/book and search it in Scihub. Based on my experience, DOI would be more convenient and quick.

Finally, you can download and read it freely.

You can check out other free download websites are the "Libgen" and the "Z-Library".

For automatically citing reference "Mendeley" is my best choice for this task.

First, you need to download "Mendeley" both on your laptop/computer and in Extension Chrome.

Next, you use Chrome to search your desire paper, lick to the NCBI/Elsevier web that contains the information of your desire paper.

Then, you can automatically save the exact details of the article by Mendeley in Chrome.

Finally, you open "Mendeley" on your laptop/computer to cite the reference to your work on Word.

For more detail, you should read the manual of "Mendeley".

The main advantage of "Mendeley" is its multiple formats for you to choose from. In addition, you can easily change between each format setting without any errors in your work. It is pretty convenient and effortless.

For grammar and other problems As a non-native English student, "Grammarly" is my savior. If you have the school email, you can have a 40% sale off the premium account (around $7.2/month). It can be reduced more if you share your account with your friends.

Another problem you have to concern when writing your work is plagiarism. Grammarly also has the feature to check this for you automatically. However, the best way is that you write everything in your own words in the first place.

Sirius rolled out from underneath the chair, grinning again. “I owe you one,” he laughed. Remus was still very confused, but he was also remembering what his mother had told him. 

That’s how we’ll get through this, Remus. 

Nope. Sirius Black would most definitely not owe him one. Sirius Black would get out of his cabin, and never speak to Remus again. Remus sat up, opening his mouth to tell Sirius to go- and the door opened. 

Today I’m extra lucky, apparently. 

A small girl with chubby cheeks and auburn hair popped her head in. “Is there any room here?”

Remus examined her for a quick moment- she seemed sweet, definitely lacked the glint of insanity in her eye that Sirius had. The girl sat down next to Remus, smiling kindly. 

“Hi, I’m Lily,” she said, holding out her hand. 

Remus took it. “I’m Remus,” he smiled back at her. The girl peeked over Remus’s lap, and her smile broadened. 

“Wow, you like The Lord of The Rings? I love that series! I haven’t finished the second book just yet, I was actually planning to read it on the ride to Hogwarts!” 

Remus grinned, picking up his book. “Really? I’m on my third reread.”

Sirius snorted in front of them. Asshole. Hopefully they would bore him with their book talk. 

“You two are definitely Ravenclaws,” he laughed. Remus opted to ignore him, because honestly, he wasn’t worth the time- but Lily turned her head. 

“I wouldn’t mind any of the houses, actually. Being cunning or brave or intelligent or kind all seem like wonderful traits to me.” 

“Maybe you’ll be a Hufflepuff, then,” Sirius replied in a more than condescending tone. Remus had a very strong urge to yell for that bloody prefect and expose Black- Lily was just being nice, after all. 

“Yea, and what about you?” Remus asked, not being able to resist the venom in his tone; okay, so he had a bit of a temper, but the pretentious wanker deserved it. 

Now Sirius shifted uncomfortably, and his cool demeanor faltered for a moment before he threw back his shoulders, obviously doing his best to seem more holier-than-thou than he already was. It wasn’t working very well, honestly- he just looked sad. 

“I’m a Black,” Sirius replied. “All the Blacks are Slytherins.” 

Remus narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t answer my question.” 

Sirius faltered. He opened his mouth to reply- but no words came out. Then the door opened again, and Remus was actually about to audibly sigh in exasperation. A boy with sallow skin and long, greasy black hair appeared, his attention immediately going to Lily. 

“Come, Lily,” he said coldly. “I found us a cabin.” 

“Oh, Sev-”

“Come on, you can meet some friends.” Lily turned back, smiling apologetically at Remus before following her friend out of the cabin. As she did, two other boys stepped in the doorway, one smaller and pudgy with pale blonde hair and wide blue eyes, the other thin and tall with brown skin, round glasses, and hair that stuck up in seven different directions. 

The brown skinned one stared after Lily and Sev, his mouth wide open, until his friend tugged on his sleeve. He came to life suddenly, pulling them both into Remus’s cabin. 

“Hi,” he grinned from where he sat across from Remus. “I’m James Potter. That’s Peter.” 

Peter raised a hand, waving meekly. He looked nice enough. Remus tried to look friendly, but he was already tired- this was the most social interaction he had ever had with anybody in his entire life, and he had barely gotten on the train an hour ago. 

“Hi. I’m Remus.” 

“I’m Sirius,” Sirius said. Sirius and James looked at each other, and James asked, 

“Aren’t you the one that took that prefect’s fags earlier?”

There it was again. That glint in Sirius’s eye. That speck in those steel grey irises that screamed, I’m trouble. “Yeah.” 

James gave him a smile, matching that same look- almost identical, despite how different the two boys appeared. “Wicked.”